Business News

Thousands more tracker mortgage overcharging cases have been owned up to by Ulster Bank and AIB.

Ulster Bank, which this week had to apologise after customer money disappeared from accounts, has admitted it has now found up to 2,000 extra tracker cases. The total may now be as high as 5,500 at the bank, it said.

AIB said it had identified another 1,800 cases of people who were never on a tracker, but should have been offered one. These people have been offered refunds and compensation of €1,000, and €650 to pay for financial advice. AIB now has 11,200 tracker cases in total.

Across all 15 lenders, an additional 3,400 tracker overcharging cases have been identified by the Central Bank.

The total number of people who lost homes due to the tracker scandal has also risen to 71.

Refunds

The total number of tracker accounts affected by the overcharging has now shot up from 20,000 cases last September to 37,100 now.

But it could be the end of the year before the new customer cases identified will receive refunds and be compensated.

The Central Bank, in its latest update on the tracker mortgage probe, has warned that more cases will be identified across all lenders.

Earlier this year, this publication reported that the total number of cases was likely to top 40,000.

The Central Bank said 71 mortgage holders lost their homes, and there were 142 buy-to-let ownership losses.

Refunding and compensating customers affected has already cost the 15 banks involved in the tracker probe around €1bn, with the final figure expected to go even higher.

Those who lost trackers, because banks refused to put them back on the low rate when they fixed for a while, or when they restructured their mortgage, are being put back on tracker rates. They are also getting refunds of overcharged interest – referred to as redress by the Central Bank – and compensation.